


You look but you don’t see

by xantissa



Series: Carnival of Rust [15]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 17:37:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/pseuds/xantissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim and Khan have a confrontation after they return from the mission of recovering Turin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You look but you don’t see

The moment the door to the conference room closed, Khan turned on Jim. The composure he had held onto shattered as he advanced on the blond Captain making Jim backpedal till his back hit the wall. He was all for arguing with the augment but he wasn’t stupid and was in no hurry to provoke a physical altercation.

 

“Your misguided idealism is threatening to kill all of us!” Khan snarled at Jim.

 

Kirk felt his spine straighten up as a wave of adrenaline and outrage flooded his veins.

 

“As I remember it, it was that idealism that saved the lives of your crew the first time around! If I was a different person I would have just shot those damn torpedoes!” the unspoken ‘if I was like you’ was clear enough that Khan took a step back, almost flinching.

 

Khan straightened, his pale eyes boring into Jim’s. There was an almost palpable aura of power and anger about the man, strong and almost alive. The sheer charisma of the augment was stunning and for once Jim could actually see just why he had become one of the greatest leaders among the augments of the Eugenics War.

 

“Your orders were not thought out. You didn’t consider the ramifications,  you merely sent Katya to do your dirty work so that you didn’t have to change your self-image of a righteous man.” Khan accused Jim with an odd kind of calmness, the iciness almost palpable.

 

“Me?!” Kirk gaped. “It was you who sent her to fight those jets!”

 

“No. I sent her to take them down from a safe distance, minimal risk to her, maximal efficiency." Khan denied, his voice a low, mocking rumble. “You on the other hand sent her to do impossible things because obviously the two pilots were more worthy of staying alive than one of my crew.”

 

Jim snorted, outraged.

 

“Don’t put words in my mouth! Don’t think I hadn’t noticed how you twist conversations around so that everyone else is the guilty party. I have no idea how you do it, but I saw you turn that twisted logic on McCoy and even Spock, I saw how you cut them with your words till they bled. I care for all of them equally!”

 

Khan sniffed disdainfully and paced back a bit.

 

“Equally.” He repeated scornfully. “You ordered Katya to not kill because you knew she would survive a lot more than a simple human. You didn’t even stop to consider that surviving didn’t mean she wouldn’t suffer the pain! Or is it that her pain doesn’t matter?” There was something ugly in that low rumble.

 

Jim had to swallow his first instinctive response. In front of Khan he didn’t want to admit that he acted on sheer instinct. It’s not like he had a page-long list of reasons behind his orders. It was something in his gut, a hunch that said that they couldn’t leave any dead bodies behind them on this mission.

 

“Khan.” He tried keeping calm, watching the dark haired man before him. Khan’s head was turned slightly, the tendons in his neck standing out, casting shadows on his pale skin. His dark shirt was stretched tight over his chest, only accentuating the hard musculature of the man. Jim found it a challenge to pull his gaze away from the pectorals drawn clearly under the dark material. “You already had to deal with people who thought prevention was the best choice, who chose efficiency over morality and honor. We _have_ tried it your way, now can we please try things my way? It may be a more crude method, definitely more painful... but wasn’t there enough suffering and death already? Isn’t it worth it to try and see if things can be changed? I want to help you save your people not start another war.”

 

Khan paced away from him, his chest expanding as he took a deep breath and exhaled it very, very slowly. Again Kirk couldn’t stop himself from staring at the way Khan’s body moved, the shift of those perfect muscles under pale skin. Damn, he was in trouble.

 

“Tell me the truth _Captain_ , wasn’t it easier to send an _augment_ on an impossible mission than somebody from your own crew?” And oh, but it was a while since Khan had said his title in that particular way, all distain and mockery.

 

“I had no other choice Khan. Who else was I going to send in the time I had available? Why do you insist on only seeing the worst possible motivation I could have had?”

 

Those intense, pale eyes turned on him again and Jim really couldn’t look away.

 

“You want me to just trust you? Just like that? Just because you ask?” Khan mocked him, his eyes as unyielding as always.

 

Jim sighed, lowering his head for a moment and closing his eyes. It was like a constant, uphill battle with Khan and his utter inability to just trust for once and see what other people were trying to do for him. Jim truly wanted to help him, to save his crew but hell if that man wasn’t making it damn hard.

 

“You live in the world where you don’t listen and you don’t care what other people, other humans are trying to do for you.” Kirk said finally, rubbing his face with his hand, pressing hard on his eyes, suddenly very tired.

 

“Oh, don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t see. I see so much more that you. You, so young, so naïve, so... damn... blind!” Khan sounded angry, enraged suddenly, his jaw working, his fists closed tightly.

 

Jim jerked around to look him in the eye, only just refraining from starting a fight he didn’t stand a chance of winning. “Oh yeah? And what is it exactly that I don’t see?”

 

Khan took a step back, obviously trying to control himself but his pale eyes seemed on fire, burning right through Jim.

 

“Me.” Khan almost snarled those words. “You look but you don’t see, don’t realize just who; what I am. Even though you have it right in front of your nose, you keep on forgetting.”

 

Jim took a sharp breath, his nostrils flaring in anger.

 

“Yeah?” He snarled. “And what is it exactly that I forget about you Khan, huh?”

 

Suddenly all the rage and anger drained out of Khan, leaving him cold, his eyes disdainfully gazing at Jim as if he was something the dog dragged in.

 

“That I am _better_.”

 

There was a certain, specific way Khan accented the word. Like a threat, a promise, a statement of fact. He wasn’t boasting, he was threatening.

 

“Yeah, I heard that before.” Jim snarked.

 

“Yes you have, yet you didn’t learn a thing from the experience did you?” Khan was still cold, faint condescending amusement coloring his voice now.

 

Khan moved from his stationary position that he had kept for the whole time, almost crowding Jim with his chest. His voice lowered to that incredible rumble and his pale eyes bored into Jim with breathtaking intensity.

 

“Whatever you think about, whatever your plan is, I have already considered it. Whatever your agenda is, be sure I have already foreseen it. The decisions you struggle with, I have taken a dozen times. The things you flinch from even seeing, I have done myself.” Khan took a step back, his head held high and face as cold as ice. “You don’t see _me_.”

 

With those words Khan turned on his heel and left the small conference room, never once looking back.

 

Jim took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Standing against Khan’s intensity always felt as if he just spend ten rounds in a boxing ring, on the losing side to boot.

 

He rubbed his face tiredly.

 

He needed a drink.

 

The end.

15-07-2013

**Author's Note:**

> As I said, short scenes. I really did try to clump them together somehow but they really, really don't work as chanters of the same story. So separate parts.


End file.
